Major poems of the Hebrew Bible : : at the interface of hermeneutics and structural analysis / / J.P. Fokkelman.

• Superior document: Studia Semitica Neerlandica. ; 37
• Author: Fokkelman, J. P.
• Place / Publishing House: Assen, The Netherlands : : Van Gorcum,, 1998-<2004>.
• Year of Publication: 1998
• Language: English
• Series: Studia Semitica Neerlandica 47.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (466 pages)

The Book of Job contains the only sustained, through-composed work in verse in the Hebrew Bible. This makes it very suitable as a testing area for the rules of verse structure and all other aspects of prosody that were developed in Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible Vol. II and are now also available in Reading Biblical Poetry. This fourth and last volume completes the study that in Vol. I started with Job 3 (curses and complaint), and continued with the first round of the debate (chs.4-14) in Vol. II. Again, the analysis follows two separate circuits: on the one hand that of language, style and structure, on the other hand that of measuring proportions on at least five textual levels. The poetry section of the Book of Job contains 412 strophes, of which the protagonist Job speaks exactly half. His portion of 206 strophes is also divided into equal halves: in 103 short and 103 long strophes. Even more than in the Psalms, the norm figures 7, 8 and 9 play an essential part in the composition of the poems and their average number of syllables per colon. The forty poems of the book exhibit various forms of numerical perfection, and the correct demarcation of strophes and stanzas is found to considerably improve and expand our understanding of its contents.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material / J.P. Fokkelman -- Preface / J.P. Fokkelman -- Introduction / J.P. Fokkelman -- Eliphaz’ second speech and Job’s answer (Job 15 - 17) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Bildad’s second speech and Job’s answer (Job 18- 19) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Zophar’s second speech and Job’s answer (Job 20-21) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Eliphaz’ third speech and Job’s answer(Job 22 - 24) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Bildad (short) and Job (long)(Job 25 - 28) / J.P. Fokkelman -- The dialectics of bliss and misery: three speeches by Job complete the debate proper(Job 29 - 31) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Elihu (Job 32 - 34) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Elihu continued(Job 35 - 37) / J.P. Fokkelman -- God’s answer from the storm(A)(Job 38 - 39) / J.P. Fokkelman -- God’s answer from the storm (B) and Job’s reaction(Job 40 - 42:6) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Results and conclusions / J.P. Fokkelman -- Full syllable counts for Job 15-42 / J.P. Fokkelman -- Full figures for all strophes and poems / J.P. Fokkelman -- Five text levels: the figures for the literary units / J.P. Fokkelman -- SL-configurations per chapter / J.P. Fokkelman -- Distribution of S- and L-strophes over the chapters / J.P. Fokkelman -- Distribution of colon lengths per chapter / J.P. Fokkelman -- Distribution of colon lengths (3-14 syllables) in the book of Job / J.P. Fokkelman -- Combinations of chapters (syllable counts) / J.P. Fokkelman -- Abbreviations / J.P. Fokkelman -- Selected Bibliography / J.P. Fokkelman -- Corrections to Volume III / J.P. Fokkelman -- Changes to the original Hebrew text / J.P. Fokkelman -- The full Hebrew text of Job 3-42 in its poetic form / J.P. Fokkelman.